PharmaDiagnostics’ SoPRano technology was awarded the New Product Award (NPA) Designation by a panel of scientific specialists chaired by Al Kolb of KeyTech Solutions, and including Charles Lunn of Merck and Ricardo Macarron of GSK. SoPRano was selected for the prize from a large range of products at the exhibition at which 155 different companies were exhibiting.

The yearly SBS conference is organized by the Society for Laboratory Automation & Screening (SLAS), an international community of more than 10,000 individual scientists, engineers, researchers, technologists and others from academic, government and commercial laboratories. SLAS provides forums for education and information exchange to encourage study and advance laboratory science and technology for the drug discovery, agrochemical, biotechnology, chemical, clinical diagnostic, consumer product, energy, food, forensic, pharmaceutical, security and other industries.

This is the 3rd time in the last 12 months that PharmaDiagnostics SoPRano has won a 1st prize technology award at a leading exhibition. In addition to the prize at SBS 2011, PharmaDiagnostics also won the ELRIG Technology Prize twice in 2010. This was at Drug Discovery 2010, Coventry, in September 2010 and Liquid Handling & Label Free Technologies 2010 in March 2010.

Label-free screening is an area of great interest and potential growth in pharmaceutical research. To date, the expanding SPR segment of this market has been dominated by providers of expensive specialist instrumentation that is unable, due to technical constraints, to provide the throughput required for routine adoption of label-free screening. PharmaDiagnostics’ SoPRano label-free platform is the first SPR-based system to utilize standard plate-readers, and simple assay protocols. This makes for increased accessibility for researchers, lowers barrier to adoption and also offers excellent scalability, thus lowering costs, as it is not necessary to increase instrument expenditure to increase throughput.

“Winning our third prize in 12 months, this time from the SBS 2011 conference at which we are assessed against many multinational suppliers, is continued demonstration that SoPRano’s appeal to industry and academic experts is real and ongoing,” said Dr David Ricketts, CEO at PharmaDiagnostics. “SoPRano was chosen by a select panel of well respected industry figures. This prize at the SBS conference is further proof that the potential of a label-free platform that requires no expensive instrumentation, and offers high throughput, is recognized by key members of the industry.”

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